Best Practices

While AppMaster.io was created with the best possible usability in mind there are a couple of non-obvious concepts that have to be clarified. This article will cover the main methodology and concept behind the platform.

For most no-code platforms nowadays there is quite a common approach to start an application creation process from the user interface. While such an approach gives a feeling of ease start, it is not suitable for medium and large projects. AppMaster follows the standard way of the software development process, used by developers worldwide for many years with one minor modification.

Pick the modules first

We recommend starting from the selection of modules. AppMaster.io modules can contain data models, business logic, predefined settings, interface elements, custom code, and automation scripts inside. Every module was created to speed up development by prebuild logic and data. It's can be difficult to select all required modules at the start of your project, but it definitely will save you hundreds of hours designing due to the nature of modules.

There is quite a common situation when you created a lot of data models and at some point want to enable a module. Because of module supply data models, business logic, and other components there is a chance that you already created something that module has inside. This can cause unneeded intersections and additional time to adjust data models, endpoints, and UI bindings. So, there is simple advice: starts from selecting modules for your project.

Data is the foundation of everything

AppMaster.io creates applications with a data-centric approach. This means that most components can be created only based on data models. When you are finished with modules the next step is to create data models. And it's simpler than it seems. Just create each model (aka entity) with required fields (aka entity properties) and make some relations if needed.

Once you will click the Save button in Data Models Designer, AppMaster AI will automatically create basic business logic for all your data models (search records, get one record, update the record, delete the record, and some other), will create endpoints for just created business process and even will generate basic Admin Web Application pages (aka admin panel).

Almost every UI element requires a data source to be rendered. For example, the table component will use an endpoint to create a list of rows. In its turn endpoint relies on the attached business process, business process based on the data model and its fields usually (but not always!).

To get most of AppMaster.io the only thing you need is an understanding of the basic concepts of software development and data modeling, everything else can be figured out in the process of creating your first application.